


The Forgotten Run

by cherryistired



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, don't expect a regular update schedule, gonna add more characters as they become relevant, how did a random thought turn into this mess, rating might change depending on how graphic the battles get
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 07:18:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13759047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryistired/pseuds/cherryistired
Summary: A slightly different take on the forgotten Royal Scientist, specifically when his work happens.You don't remember everything.





	The Forgotten Run

You aren’t sure what you expected when you left the ruins, but you certainly weren’t expecting snow.

A slight breeze stirs the fallen snow, making you shiver and pull your arms around you. Your striped shirt, while decently warm, is too light for winter weather. You wish you had brought a jacket, or at least a scarf. Granted, you had no idea that you’d find a snowy forest or ancient ruins filled with monsters. It goes without saying this one way trip up the mountain has been a bit more exciting than you expected.

You start walking through the forest. There seems to be a mostly cleared path leading away from the door, save for a branch that’s too heavy for you to move. You’re not sure who cleared it, but after Toriel’s warning, you don’t think you want to meet them. While she did have a tendency to worry, the urgency in her voice as she…

No, you forcefully remind yourself. She isn’t dead. Not this time. Whatever strange powers you gained when you fell down here, that burning sensation in your chest every time you die, allowed you to go back and fix your mistake. Flowey may hang it over your head, but it doesn’t matter. Toriel is alive-

The branch behind you snaps.

You spin around, nearly falling over due to your fright. The branch was crushed like it was nothing. However, there’s no sign of anyone nearby. No other tracks aside from yours.

You take one last look at the branch, then hesitantly turn back and continue walking. If you had any hesitation about meeting other monsters beforehand, you now seriously don’t want to meet any of them. You’re in no shape for a battle right now; you haven’t had a chance to rest after battling Toriel. If you meet another monster right now, you’ll be seriously set back-

The snow crunches behind you.

You turn around again, faster this time, but still there are no monsters. You can’t see any more footprints either, despite clearly hearing _something_ walking behind you.

You shiver and take a deep breath, trying to get your breathing under control. You start walking again, picking up the pace. Maybe you can outrun whatever is following you?

Your hopes are dashed when you reach a gated bridge. The gate is locked, and you can’t see any way around it. The bars are too small for you to walk through.

You hear footsteps again. You freeze up, not daring to look behind you. The footsteps slowly grow louder. You take a deep breath, trying to calm yourself. You probably won’t survive this battle, but you’ve saved. You’ll have to battle Toriel again, but you know how to spare her now. Maybe next time you could go faster and give yourself more time to-

The footsteps stop.

“H u m a n .” The voice is deep and comes from directly behind your head. It’s short, but that doesn’t make it any less menacing.

“D o n ‘ t  y o u  k n o w  h o w  t o  g r e e t  a  n e w  p a l ?”

You shiver, but you keep facing forward.

“T u r n  a r o u n d  a n d  s h a k e  m y  h a n d .”

You slowly turn around, half afraid that it will be gone when you do and half afraid it won’t. Empty eye sockets glare at yours, a dead smile plastered across its skull. It raised a skeletal hand to you, expression not changing once. Forcing to keep a neutral face, you raise your hand and take his-

PBTHBPTHBPTHTPTBTPHTBTHBPBTHhhhPfpfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff……

You start to giggle a little, then start laughing harder as the tension in your shoulders slowly dissolves. The skeleton’s eyesockets light up, literally, and his grin widens as you laugh.

He chuckles. “the old whoopie cushion in the hand trick. it’s ALWAYS funny.” Despite clearly speaking, he never opens his mouth. He returns his hand to his ratty jacket pocket. “anyways, you’re a human, right?”

You raise an eyebrow and nod hesitantly.

“that’s hilarious. i’m sans. sans the skeleton. i’m actually supposed to be on watch for humans right now. but... y’know....” Sans trails off, glancing to the side before continuing. “i’m not done with my training yet, so i’m not legally obligated to catch anybody.” He winks. “and the less i have to do, the better.”

Sans motions at the gate behind you. “we keep that locked at all times, to try and keep kids outta trouble. don’t want them runnin into any humans, y’know?” He winks at you, then walks past you and unlocks the gate. “you better get outta here too kid. don’t want you runnin into trouble-”

Sans suddenly stops talking and looks behind you. “ugh, speak of the devil. if that’s who i think it is…” You turn around, and while you can’t see anyone coming, you do faintly hear the sound of footsteps crunching in the snow.

“just go on through the gate,” Sans says, dismissively motioning you forward. As you walk though, he points to a small structure and hands you his keyring. “duck inside that sentry station over there. the big key should unlock it. and keep quiet, okay?”

You quickly walk over to the sentry station and unlock it. You manage to shut the door before the footsteps get too close. You hide under the window of the sentry station as quietly as you can as the footsteps stop.

You hear Sans say, “sup, bro-” and get cut of by a bizarre noise. It doesn’t sound like any language you’ve heard, or anything you’ve heard at all. It sounded like whoever was speaking was trying to communicate something, but it came out in a garbled, auto-tuned mess. You can’t understand a word he’s saying, and yet-

“what do you mean ‘what am i doing?’ i’m workin, duh.”

Sans clearly understands his words.

“nah bro, i put in my two weeks there and left. it’s not my fault alph didn’t tell you.”

“...uh, yeah, i did. she also lined me up with this job, cuz she chats with undyne-”

“...hey, no dissing the sentries. i’m actually getting a ton of work done. a skele-ton.”

You can almost hear Sans wink, and his brother makes what can almost be recognized as a groan.

“...seriously? dings, you worked me-”

His brother shouts at Sans, but he continues-

“-down to the bone.”

Yet another almost groan, then a fairly long-winded speech that you can’t understand a word of. Even though you can barely follow what he’s trying to say, Sans’ brother is clearly frustrated. Eventually, you hear him storm off.

After a few moments, Sans speaks up. “you can come out now.”

You peer out of the sentry station to double-check, but Sans’ brother is gone. You breathe a sigh of relief, then leave the station and give Sans back his keys.

“you better head on, kid,” Sans says. “or else you’ll have to sit through more of my amazing jokes.” You nod and turn to leave, but before you get too far, Sans speaks back up. “actually, you might wanna keep an eye out. my bro doesn’t live around here, but knowing him, he’ll probably be back to bother me. and he’d probably leap at the chance of capturing a human. just…. stay safe.”

You nod again and step back down the path. Sans’ warning fills you with determination.

\-----

Less than five minutes and a very short walk later, you hear two very distinctive voices up ahead: the laid back chatter of Sans and the bizarre sounding voice of his brother. Sans was right. Still, you’re a little surprised that you’ve met them again this quickly. For one, you thought you had left Sans behind you just a few minutes ago. When had he gotten ahead of you? Also, you’re not sure why his brother would be approaching him again so soon. Doesn’t he have anything better to do?

As you muse about this, you turn a corner and suddenly become face to face with the brothers. You gasp and stumble back, interrupting what Sans’ brother was saying, and they both turn to look at you.

Now that you finally have a chance to look at both of them, you realize that, aside from both being skeletons, they look like polar opposites. Sans is short and chubby-looking, despite being a skeleton, while his brother is taller and thinner. Sans is dressed in a grungy jaket, t-shirt, and shorts, while his brother is wearing a well-pressed white coat over a button up shirt and slacks. Sans slouches, while his brother holds himself well. Sans’ expression shifts into slight concern when he recognizes you, despite still smiling, while his brother’s scowl seems to deepen.

His brother turns to Sans slowly, motioning to you with an arm and speaking with clear annoyance.

Sans squints in your direction. “uh, i think that’s a rock.”

You turn around as his brother shifts his focus behind you. Sure enough, there’s a rock. He sighs, and with a more indignant phrase, points at you.

“huh. that… is definitely not a rock.”

His brother unmistakably groans as he pinches the bone where the bridge of his nose would be. He then clears his throat and turns toward you.

“HUMAN.”

You flinch. You had no idea he could speak something you understood, or that he’d be so loud.

He continues, “I AM DR. W. D. GASTER, THE ROYAL SCIENTIST UNDER KING ASGORE. I AM THE MOST BRILLIANT AND ONE OF THE MOST RESPECTED MONSTERS IN THE ENTIRE UNDERGROUND.” As he flatters himself, he closes his eyesockets and places a bony hand with a hole in the palm on his chest. “AS SUCH, I AM A VERY BUSY MONSTER, AND I WOULD NOT HAVE TIME TO DEAL WITH THE DIRTY WORK OF CAPTURING AND KILLING A HUMAN.” He looks directly at you. “NORMALLY.”

He raises his hand, and you can feel the air shift around you in the familiar feel of a battle. “HOWEVER, DUE TO PREVIOUS UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES, I WAS FORCED TO CLEAR MY SCHEDULE.” He glances at Sans, then continues. “WHILE I INITIALLY CONSIDERED IT AN ANNOYANCE, I AM NOW QUITE GRATEFUL FOR SAID EVENT GIVING ME SOME SPARE TIME, FOR WITH IT, I CAN SPARE SOME TIME TO KILL YOU AND HARVEST YOUR SOUL.” He smiles cruelly. “DON’T TAKE THIS PERSONALLY, HU-”

Suddenly, a simple 8-bit scale starts playing, and the air settles. Gaster lowers his hand and reaches into his pocket, pulling out a phone. He flips it open, cutting off the music, and holds it up to the side of his skull. “DR. W. D. GASTER SPEAKING.” The bone where his eyebrows should be furrows, and he sighs in annoyance. “ALPHYS, I SWEAR, IF YOU’RE TRYING TO ORDER PIZZA AGAIN-” He listens for a moment. “IS THIS REALLY THAT IMPORTANT? YOU KNOW I’M BUSY. I SPECIFICALLY CLEARED MY SCHEDULE FOR THIS!” He continues listening, his expression souring. “SURELY YOU CAN HANDLE THIS ON YOUR OWN, CAN’T YOU?” Another pause to listen, and then he sighs. “...FINE. I WILL RETURN IN A MOMENT. GOODBYE.” He hangs up, closes the phone, and puts it back in his pocket.

“UNFORTUNATELY, HUMAN, MORE PRESSING MATTERS THAT NEED MY ATTENTION HAVE RISEN. THEREFORE, I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO KILL YOU PERSONALLY.” He sighs in what seems to be genuine disappointment. “HOPEFULLY SANS WILL ACTUALLY BE COMPETENT FOR ONCE AND DO HIS ‘JOB’ CORRECTLY.” He turns to his brother. “SANS! CAPTURE THIS HUMAN!”

“you got it, boss.” Sans turns around and starts walking away.

Gaster stares for a moment, then motions at you. “SANS! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

“i gotta go prepare, bro,” Sans explains, waving a hand dismissively. “gotta recalibrate my puzzles ‘n stuff.”

“BUT THE HUMAN IS RIGHT THERE!” Gaster shouts, having his arms wildly at you.

Sans turns to face his brother. “what, you seriously expect me to 1v1 them right now-”

Gaster lowers his hands and cuts him off, speaking again in that language you can’t understand. He talks for a while, and you can’t miss the negative tone of his voice. As he talks, Sans’ smile falters. You’re not sure if skeletons can go pale, but the worry on Sans’ face is evident.

Gaster eventually finishes. Sans takes a while to respond.

“...fine, whatever.” He turns around again and starts walking away, slouching a lot more noticeably.

Gaster straightens, evidently pleased with the outcome, turns back to you. “I HOPE, FOR HIS SAKE, THAT IF I SEE YOU AGAIN, YOU’LL BE CAPTURED. OR WORSE.” He turns and walks down the path away from you. You watch the two skeletons walk their separate ways and vanish from your sight.

You shiver, and not just from the snow.


End file.
